La Dolce Vita - 2025

helensbiggestfan

Happy New Year to One and All. Wishing you all health, wealth and happiness.  🥂🍾

Welcome to the new thread.  Where I catalogue my attempts to live "The Sweet Life" on the tiniest of budgets.  My aim is to live a life of ease, plenty and abundance whilst deliberately living below my means to avoid debt.   

So far so good.  I am starting the New Year Debt free although I do have some unexpected bills due in January, mainly due to my fridge freezer dying last Sunday.  Fortunately there is money in the kitty.  

And my biggest expense this year of course will be the house move.  Hopefully there won't be too many financial shocks.  🤞.   It would be nice to have enough money left to treat myself to some new furniture and maybe even a holiday.  No hurry.  I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.  

Anyway, time to start the day.  The good news is my mechanic managed to sort out the car yesterday so I have wheels again. 😁.  New fridge freezer doesn't arrive till tomorrow but at least I can drive to a nearby Tesco Express which is open today to buy milk and a few bits to tide me over until tomorrow.  

So.....life is good. And with a bit of luck and effort it is set to get even better.  

Humdinger1

Happy new year @helensbiggestfan! Found you, subscribed and looking forward to a year of productive jolly management including a fab new house.  Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

OpalGirl

Happy New Year @helensbiggestfan. I have subscribed and looking forward to another year of La Dolce Vita!

I_Love_comps

Happy New Year @helensbiggestfan.   Looking forward to your 2025 journey.

Duchess2

Happy New Year everyone. Sorry to hear about your fridge-freezer @helensbiggestfan. What a time to happen. Good though, because of your astute planning, funds were at hand for a replacement. I too had a tyre problem. Turned out to be a small screw, but the fab guy at the tyre co managed to mend it, so not quite so much of a drain on the finances as expected. 

You have so much to look forward to this year with your move. I’m sure 2025 will be your year. Thanks for the new thread and keep up the good work with your support and super tips for the DV life.

helensbiggestfan

Good Morning My Lovely Friends.  

Brrrrr.  It's a cold one, 🥶🥶.  No snow yet. 

My plan is stay home this weekend, no visitors so I shall take down the Christmas decs, have a good tidy up and pack a few more boxes.  I am decluttering as I go so next week I will be loading the car up with donations for the chazzers.  I am being quite ruthless this time.  Then once I have moved and the dust is settled and I have a clearer picture of what I want to keep long term i will probably make a start on Swedish Death Cleaning.  

My new fridge freezer arrived so life is back to normal.  It's amazing how we take our gadgets and gizmos for granted.  I grew up in the 50s without many of the mod cons we enjoy today. My poor mum must have worked so hard to keep us well fed and clean.  Our home was always spotless, even with coal fires. It must have been relentless.  How lucky we are with our double glazing, central heating, and our household appliances.  The houses I grew up in were invariably cold, damp and draughty. I count my blessings that now that I am older and less able to stand the cold I can at least keep warm.  

I woke up this morning thinking about all those who are in fear of putting on any heating or being able to afford decent food.  I know it sounds naff but I really do appreciate my good fortune and I count my blessings. I may not be wealthy but I have a home and I am warm and well fed. 

La Dolce Vita right there.  

tudorfan39

Long time lurker here.  This year I have a 3 pronged plan of attack:

- lose another stone and a half, I lost a stone in 2024 so should be doable
- get finances in check - a work in progress!
- most exciting is to do some EDTs - Extreme Day Trips, day trips to foreign places there and back in a day! So far I'm going to Edinburgh, Boulogne & Prague! Not money saving but blooming fun!

Hope you all have adventures planned in 2025!

helensbiggestfan

Good Morning All. 

Just to let you know I won't be posting much for while due to neck/shoulder problems. Typing seems to aggravate it,  so updates will probably be less frequent and fairly brief.  But I still love to hear your news.......,

 I'm still working on my goals, mainly focussed on the house move, steadily packing up my home, decluttering as I go.  

EDTs sound great. A few years ago now, back in the day of really cheap Easy Jet flights, I knew some guys were gave themselves a budget of £15 each for a day trip to London. Then they realised they could go to Madrid for £1 each way.  No contest.  Lol. 

My eldest boy is currently in Paris for work, via Eurostar. I have travelled Eurostar my self. Can recommend.  

Anyway I'm doing ok, apart from the neck issues,  chiro tomorrow so hopefully should get some relief then.  

Duchess2

Ahh sorry to hear that @helensbiggestfan. It can be so painful. You don’t realise how much you use your neck and shoulders until there’s something wrong with them. I hope you make a quick recovery but we’ll keep the thread “warm” until you can return. Take it easy xx

srn

Isn't this thread usually on Old Style Money Saving, or am I going mad?

helensbiggestfan

No you're not going mad.  😁.  I don't know how it happened....